


The Art of Giving Gifts

by Tellle



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Comfort, Dating, F/F, Fluff, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, Rebuilding, Sharing a Bed, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018) Season 5 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:34:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24223609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tellle/pseuds/Tellle
Summary: Adora and Catra have never dated anyone before. They've never even considered the concept of dating - it wasn't an option in the Horde, not really. So, after their awkward first date, Adora goes to Glimmer for advice on how to date. Her advice is simple: Give Catra gifts that remind you of her.Adora didn't really understand the advice, but there's no way she's going to let that stop her!A fic where Catra and Adora learn how to date while also enjoying a life where they don't have to fight anyone anymore. They're together, they're helping rebuild Brightmoon and it's so sweet it'll rot your teeth.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 253





	1. The First Date

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AKarnstein](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AKarnstein/gifts).



> ["Your heart's runnin' away with your head!"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CYaZFydbA4)
> 
> This fic is for Akarnstein. She's helped me massively with my previous fics and she's always there to talk to me about She-Ra, and she also had the idea for this fic. If you want to give her a follow, her tumblr is @thankfullyimgay! So, thank you (and enjoy)!

“Calm down. It’s a cup of tea, it’s not going to kill you.”

Adora didn’t. The cup was too hot to hold in one place for long, so she kept on moving it in circles between the palms of her hands. The porcelain heated up far too quickly, but she liked the warmth and she needed something to fidget with right now.

“You never know!” She said.

And then she said nothing.

She should have, really, considering she was on a date. It was considered polite to talk and be interesting, or at least - she was fairly sure she was meant to. Instead, she stared at the cup in front of her intently.

It wasn’t a particularly interesting cup of tea. There was nothing unique about the plain, white cup, except for maybe the fact that it had no handle. It was green tea, and it still had a few stalks floating around in it. They were spinning around the cup in a clockwise direction, matching the pace that Adora was spinning it with. Occasionally they would float past her reflection and distort it, shaking her out of the self-inflicted trance she had put herself under temporarily.

“No,” Catra said, “that’s the least threatening thing I’ve seen all day, and I’ve seen Bow in an apron.”

Catra’s posture couldn't have been more different to Adora’s. Adora was hunched over the table, but Catra had her back stretched out as she basked in the sunlight that drifted through the window. She was swinging on her chair with her feet on the table, and to a casual observer she looked as though she couldn’t care less.

Adora, naturally, believed this. Not because she wasn’t clever, but because she hadn’t taken the time to look at Catra since arriving. They’d spent a lot of time together in the past, but this - this was their first date. This was official. This was the start of something new, something bigger, and Adora did not want to mess this up. She was a bundle of nerves, and she hadn’t stopped shaking her leg since sitting down.

Catra was just as nervous, though. She’d put on a mask, again - the one that didn’t care, the one that walked about with a cool, detached attitude and wasn’t attached to anyone or anything. Thoroughly fake, but convincing enough for the purposes of the date.

She hadn’t even touched her cup of tea.

They’d decided that a coffee shop was a good place for a first date. More rather, they’d both independently asked Glimmer, who had suggested to each of them a coffee shop, and then they told each other that they had thought up going to a coffee shop as though it were an original idea. It was a nice place, too, all things considered. It had been destroyed during Prime’s invasion, but Brightmoon was one of the first places to be renovated and rebuilt, and that included the coffee shops in the palace grounds. Strictly speaking, the glass panes next to where Catra was lounging hadn’t been put in to the windows, but that just made getting in and out of the shop easier - a silver lining, actually.

It was decorated before in an old fashioned style, with lots of brass and mahogany and leather. Some of that had remained, but the new Etheria’s vegetation was relentless - the entire palace grounds had been overgrown, and the coffee shop was no exception. Unlike a lot of the palace, though, the proprietor had decided to lean in to this new aesthetic. The brass and mahogany tables now had small trees growing in, around and through them, rooting them in place. A few glints of brass could be seen here and there, but other than the polished woody which the tea cups rested upon, the original table couldn’t be seen. The walls were covered in roots, too, but they were grown and cultivated so that in a few months it would be covered with unique and colourful flowers.

It was truly a place that was on the rise and would no doubt be the talk of the town next year, but the atmosphere wasn’t helping the date in the slightest. Both women were pointedly looking away from the other as they sat in silence that was only broken by the sipping of tea.

It took 15 minutes before Catra put her cup down and stood up.

It was the first time that Adora had properly looked at Catra since coming in to the shop. She was wearing the same shirt and trousers she’d worn to the Princess Prom, but somehow Adora was only just noticing that. She’d even added a waistcoat and rolled up her sleeves, showing off the groomed tufts of hair on her forearm. Had Catra let someone brush her arm hair?

Catra put one hand in to her pocket and with the other she put down a handful of coins on to the top - enough to pay for the both of them, plus a tip on top of the server who’d tactically avoided their table. She smiled and almost, _almost_ laughed.

“You know, you’re - _we’re_ \- bad at this ‘dating’ thing.”

And then she left.

\---

“How do you date?”

Glimmer had to pause what she was doing to hold in a laugh. She almost succeeded, too, but it was so unexpected that she didn’t stand a chance. She was in the kitchens with Wrong Hordak who, really, needed to be given a new name at this point. He was teaching her how to cook, and he was doing a good job at it too. They’d started with the dumplings they’d made together the first time on Mara’s ship, and then moved on to more adventurous recipes - for instance, he was now teaching her how to make pasta.

“Don’t laugh! We weren’t allowed to, you know, _date_ in the Horde. I just thought you’d know what to do!”

Glimmer looked to Wrong Hordak and laughed some more. He was laughing as well, but not because he found it funny - he hadn’t entirely gotten the concept of humour fully, yet, but he knew when he was meant to laugh and when he was meant to frown. It was winking that was still tripping him up.

“Alright, alright, I’ll help you with dating, sure,” Glimmer said as she put down a wooden spoon. “What are you looking for?”

Adora looked at her blankly, as though she’d just said the sky was blue.

“Dating.”

“What, just, the concept of dating?”

“... yes.”

Glimmer started to laugh before realising that Adora was being completely honest. She quickly stopped herself, rubbing her mouth with the back of her hand to cover the smile that was curling at the edges of her lips.

“Well, I…” Glimmer said, trailing off for a few seconds as she thought. The thing is, she wasn’t any more experienced than Adora in this, but she wasn’t about to let Adora know about that. She was relying on her, and besides, it’d be comedy gold later down the line.

“Presents.” She spoke with a finality, as though the one word would solve everything.

“Presents?” Adora asked. She looked sceptical, but eager - she looked like she _wanted_ the advice to work, but wasn’t sure how to put it in to practice.

“Oh, yeah. Presents. People love surprises. Presents are surprises but they’re also, like, super romantic. Give her something that reminds you of her - that should do it.”


	2. A particularly smooth stone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rgHLqM5jB88)
> 
> Man, I'm not used to writing this much this quickly! Sorry to all the readers who had to wait 9 months for my other fic to update - I promise I'll get to it soon! Until then, here's another chapter of this - enjoy!!!

Adora had given a lot of thought to what Glimmer had said. Far more thought than Glimmer could have ever anticipated. She’d hardly slept that night because of it, much to Catra’s chagrin. Adora constantly had a ball of energy threatening to burst out of her chest, and lying in bed was no exception - she tossed, turned and kept shaking her leg throughout the night. If Catra happened to be in the way, well, that was unfortunate for her.

Catra, of course, was used to this. They’d shared a bed throughout most of their childhood, so while she would wake up every now and again when Adora rolled on top of her, she’d also fall back asleep within seconds. It was the morning that posed a true issue to the both of them.

Adora didn’t entirely understand the concept of lying in. There was an entire day to be had, and if the sun was up, she was up. Catra, on the other hand, could spend an entire day in bed. The main reason she didn’t was simple: if she spent the day in bed, she wouldn’t be able to go to sleep that night, and sleeping was one of her greatest joys in life.

Catra could read what every toss and every turn meant when she slept in the same bed as Adora. For most of that night, it meant she had trouble getting to sleep, but she could also tell which flips and rolls she performed in her sleep, too, so she knew exactly when she  _ did _ manage to fall asleep. When she began to raise her shoulder off of the bed, then, she knew Adora was trying to get out of bed.

Somewhat more insultingly, she had only just woken up and was trying to get out of bed.

As Adora began to rise, she felt Catra’s fingers curl across her upper arm. It was soft, but firm - she was pulling Adora back down, back in to bed, and there was no debate to be had about it. Adora knew this from experience, so she let herself get dragged back in to Catra’s stomach.

Catra mumbled something into Adora’s hair. It smelt of sweat, which wasn’t surprising as Adora always smelt like sweat before her morning shower.

“What was that?” Adora asked. Her tongue was still numb from sleeping, so she stumbled over a few of the words, but it was clear enough to understand.

“I said, where you going?” Catra replied. She was less clear, but not because of sleep. She was talking in to Adora’s scalp and making no effort to enunciate. Her mind was sleep-addled and all she could really think about was the warmth of having Adora in her arms, but Adora heard enough to know what she was saying.

“Oh, you know,” Adora said, “out.”

She felt Catra nuzzle her face further into Adora’s head as she blew a small puff of air out of her nose.

“Oh yeah?” She said as a small, joyful tone crept in to her words, “Cuddling not good enough for you, Ms She-Ra?”

Adora laughed.

She enjoyed this. She enjoyed being able to sleep in the same bed as Catra. She enjoyed being able to talk to her in the morning, and she enjoyed joking around with her as they took jabs at one another, but most of all she just enjoyed being held.

“Maybe you’re not. Maybe I’m running off to my second bed, where I get the whole bed to myself and a secret stash of snacks.” She could barely make it through the sentence without giggling a little bit, but she managed to force herself to finish anyhow.

Catra wasn’t having a bar of it. She rolled away from Adora, just slightly, and tucked her feet up and planted them on her back. Before Adora knew what was happening, she’d been kicked off of the bed.

“Hey!”

Catra rolled over to the side where Adora had been and rested her chin on the edge. Adora was lying on her back on the floor, looking right back up at her. Catra had held on tight to the blanket as she pushed so Adora had nothing to protect her against the harsh, cold air of the morning.

“Off you go, then,” Catra said, still mumbling.

“Maybe I will.” Adora didn’t move at all.

“Alright,” Catra said, rolling back onto the bed so that Adora couldn’t see her. “See you this afternoon, then.”

Adora laughed as she got sat up and slowly shaked the fog from her brain like a second-hand ectosketch.

“No, but really, I have somewhere to be.”

Catra spun right back around. Or, more rather, she spun as quickly as someone who was wrapped in blankets  _ could _ spin, creating an effect that was simultaneously both amusing and outraged at the same time.

“Where?”

Adora interlocked her fingers and stretched her arms, lifting them above her head as she pushed upwards. The rim of her sleep shirt lifted slightly, exposing a small slither of her mildly scarred abs. This was no accident - she knew Catra liked watching her stretch and flex, and now was a convenient time to begin.

“It’s a surprise.”

Catra, who had been staring at Adora, shook herself out of her reverie by letting herself roll on to her back. 

“Not much of a surprise if you tell me beforehand.”

“Quit complaining!”

\---

Adora had a very skewed concept of what constituted a gift. She had to legitimately take some time to sit down and think about what, exactly, she should give Catra. The sitting down part was metaphorical, of course - Adora couldn’t sit still to save her life, so she pondered this question in a similar manner to the philosophers of old by walking around the castle grounds.

After much deliberation, she came to the conclusion that something had to fit three criteria to be considered a romantic gift. Firstly, it had to be something she could give to Catra. Secondly, it had to  _ remind _ her of Catra, as Glimmer had suggested; this step made it romantic. But, most importantly, it had to be wrapped.

Adora could do the first two steps easily, but the third posed a serious problem. She’d never given a gift before, much less  _ wrapped _ one before. She had the gift figured out already, actually, so she just needed to learn how to wrap it.

Luckily, there was someone Adora knew who was fantastic at this sort of thing.

“I’m so glad you came! We’re going to have  _ so _ much fun - wrapping gifts is, like, so rewarding!”

Perfuma was helping out massively with the reconstruction of Brightmoon. Most of the damage had been caused by plants, so Glimmer and Perfuma reckoned it could be undone by them, too. They were mostly right, too, but Perfuma had extended her stay to look at the new plants which had grown there. Most of them were unique in some way, brought on by the Heart’s destruction, and she loved every moment of it.

“Yeah! Glimmer told me that giving gifts was romantic, so I thought I’d ask you how to wrap them. I’ve got my own wrapping paper -” Adora said this and trailed off as she slipped her bag off of her shoulder and let it drop to the floor. Perfuma winced slightly as this happened - she was worried about anything inside that might have been fragile, but Adora had no such worries.

The two of them were in Perfuma’s grotto. A lot of her people lived here, and as such were milling around - a few were even watching with mild interest. Perfuma had grown a small village in the castle grounds for herself and her people and, while it was originally going to be temporary, Glimmer saw no reason why it couldn’t be permanent. Adora and Perfuma were currently standing in a small court next to perfuma’s house; technically, it might be considered her garden, but it was a communal area where she held all of her meditation circles, flower crown weavings and most recently her present wrapping tutorials.

After some rummaging, Adora pulled out some brown paper. It was the exact kind one would wrap a parcel in - it was coarse, light brown and creased at the slightest touch. Unlike a parcel, though, Adora didn’t bring string to wrap it with. After putting the paper on the floor, she pulled out a roll of red ribbon to wrap it with. She put that on top of the paper and looked up at Perfuma expectantly.

“... and the gift?” Perfuma asked. She was somewhat disapproving of the choice of wrapping paper, but she was smiling encouragingly nonetheless. She had her own paper, which was a light green, and an empty cardboard box for demonstration purposes.

“Oh, yeah!”

Adora continued to rummage through the bag before pulling out a rock.

Perfuma’s brow furrowed slightly in confusion. Her first question was simple: why did she have a rock in her bag? Unfortunately, it soon morphed in to a worse and far more pertinent question as Adora put it next to the wrapping paper: why on  _ earth _ did she think it was romantic to give Catra a rock?

“Um,” Perfuma started, unsure of how, exactly, to continue without ruining the good vibes she’d worked so hard to cultivate, “is that your gift?”

“Yes,” Adora said, nodding. She pauses as neither of them said anything before she realised that Perfuma was looking for an explanation. “Oh, right, yeah - it’s  _ really _ smooth.”

Perfuma nodded as she slowly knelt down. She was confused so heavily that she didn’t know where to begin - she didn’t even know the right question to ask to begin to shed light on the situation, so she decided not to address it at all.

“Well, um, the first thing to do is to flatten your paper like this -”

\---

“Urgh!”

Catra was pacing across her room, practically throwing herself from wall to wall. She was wearing a comfortable pair of baggy trousers and one of Adora’s tops while talking at Glimmer.

Glimmer was lying on Catra’s bed. Catra hardly slept in her bed, but it was still never made and the room was far messier than it should be, especially considering the fact that she didn’t  _ own _ anything. Glimmer had come in to ask how the date yesterday had gone - she wasn’t about to tell Catra that Adora was worried, but she was curious to see what Catra’s point of view was.

What she had received was a fifteen minute tirade about how useless everyone, and everything, was. She was getting better, though, and significantly better at that. She corrected herself as she talked; initially, it was Adora’s fault that the date had gone so poorly, but as soon as she had said that she corrected herself to take some of the blame as well.

Glimmer was listening with a mixture of soft exasperation and amusement. She had suggested the coffee shop to the both of them, and had given Catra the money to go there. Neither of them were, strictly speaking, employed, so sometimes they had to ask Glimmer for money and she was more than happy to help them out. They both grew up in the Horde, so neither had any sense for how much money was needed for anything; in truth, Catra had just put all of her money on the table at the end of the date in the assumption that Glimmer had given her enough for coffee.

Luckily she had, but Glimmer found the idea of tipping the server enough to buy a house far more amusing than she should have.

\---

Adora was proud of the final product. To her, it was phenomenal. In reality, it wasn’t a particularly impressive feat - she’d merely wrapped as well as most people would have, but it was leaps and bounds ahead of her first dozen attempts on her own. For those, she had simply put the paper around the stone and closed her fist, and then proceeded to wonder why it was so wrinkled.

She’d thanked Perfuma and made her way to Catra’s room.

Adora didn’t knock when entering Catra’s room, and Catra didn’t knock when entering Adora’s room - they didn’t intend to start now, either, so when Adora walked in to Catra’s room she was talking to Glimmer. She was animated, so it was clearly something she was frustrated about. She was throwing her arms in every direction and had her back to the door, but stopped as soon as Adora walked in.

Both of them looked at her and smiled.

“Catra!” Adora said. She was talking way louder than was strictly necessary to cover for her nerves. She shouldn’t have been nervous, really. She had no reason to be, but she’d never given Catra a gift before. In the same way she was nervous for their first date, she was nervous for their first gift, and she was massively overcompensating.

She had her back straight, her shoulders set back, and she walked forwards in much the same way one might expect a soldier to walk during a routine inspection. She held out the present in one hand and looked Catra dead in the eye. She gave no explanation whatsoever.

Catra smiled slightly and took the present off of her.

“For me?” She asked. Adora simply nodded.

Glimmer felt like she was watching two wild animals communicate. She didn’t understand their language in the slightest, but she knew enough to know that this was significant. It warmed her to watch this - blossoming love slowly blooming as they peeled away the years of repression that the Horde had covered them in.

That lovely warm feeling was swept away when Catra opened the present to find a rock.

Catra’s eyes widened. The rock was large enough to fit comfortably in the palm of her hand and formed a perfectly smooth oval. It wasn’t too flat, nor was it too round - instead, it was long and oblong in shape. She smiled and ran to the windowsill before throwing it out of the window.

Glimmer ran through seventeen emotions in all of three sections, including (but not limited to) second-hand cuteness, confusion, anger and shock.

Adora simply laughed.

Glimmer began to speak as a sputtering sound escaped her, but Adora ran to the windowsill and began talking before she had the chance.

“Aw, I expected better than that from you! I gave you the  _ best _ rock!”

“You know I always win this game!” Catra pushed Adora’s shoulder lovingly as she continued to laugh. Adora reached into her pocket and pulled out her own stone. It was significantly rougher than Catra’s had been, and wasn’t the slightest bit uniform in shape. She weighed it in her hands for a second before taking a step back and, just like Catra had, throwing it out of the window with an overarm pitch.

As soon as it was out of the window, they both rushed and shoved their heads out, watching the arc of the stone as it flew through the air. It went until it was almost a spec and, after a few seconds of waiting, Catra broke the silence.

“I told you I always win.”

“No way - mine went  _ way _ further than yours.”

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“You know -” Catra said as she took a step back from the window, “we can actually check now to see who won. Race you?”

Adora didn’t answer - instead, she just ran for the door, leaving Glimmer more confused than when they began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For context, there's certain physical lines you can't cross in the Fright Zone - if you do, an alarm goes off. Adora and Catra used to go up to them and see who could throw a stone the furthest over that line, and usually argue over who won for the entire week.
> 
> I really appreciate any and all comments!
> 
> Until I see you next time - stay hydrated!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Next chapter will have more gift-giving in it, I swear! In the meantime, why don't you leave me a comment? Reading them really inspires me to write! Or, if you want to read more, you could even take a gander at my other She-Ra fic, but you don't have to.
> 
> Until next time - stay hydrated!


End file.
